TORONTO: The Canadian dollar firmed against its US counterpart on Tuesday after China's GDP data provided relief for battered commodity-linked currencies, while traders trimmed bets that the Bank of Canada will cut rates on Wednesday.
China's fourth-quarter growth slowed to 6.8 percent, meeting forecasts but also raising hopes that Beijing will cushion the slowdown with more stimulus policies. China is a major customer for Canada's commodity exports.
Oil prices rose as data showed Chinese oil demand likely hit a record high in 2015, but contracts remained near 12-year lows as the IEA said the market should stay oversupplied this year.
The implied probability of a Bank of Canada rate cut this week was little more than 50 percent, down from 64 percent on Monday. A rate cut has been fully discounted by May.
At 9:02 a.m. EST (1402 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.4509 to the greenback, or 68.92 US cents, stronger than the Bank of Canada's official close on Monday of C$1.4557, or 68.70 US cents.
The currency's strongest level of the session was C$1.4433, while its weakest level was C$1.4559. On Monday, it hit its weakest since April 2003 at C$1.4650.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struck a more downbeat note than typical on the battered currency as well as low oil prices, saying they hurt large parts of the economy. Trudeau sidestepped a question as to whether budget deficits will be much larger than promised to help a sluggish economy.
Canadian investors bought a record C$16.46 billion ($11.35 billion) worth of foreign securities in November, mostly in US Treasury bonds and stocks, Statistics Canada said.
Canadian government bond prices fell across the maturity curve, with the two-year price down 6.5 Canadian cents to yield 0.337 percent and the benchmark 10-year falling 42 Canadian cents to yield 1.205 percent. The yield hit a record low on Friday at 1.143 percent.
The Canada-US 10-year bond spread was 1.7 basis points less negative at -85.6 basis points as Canadian government bonds underperformed. It hit a record-wide gap toward the end of December at -90.3 basis points.
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